When vocalist Kurt Travis looks at his peers in genres such as hardcore/emo or modern prog rock, he doesn’t always like what he sees and hears.

“I don’t want to be too harsh, but I feel like a lot of bands nowadays, especially in the genres we like to dip in, they’re there for the wrong reasons. They’re playing music because oh, we’re going to cater to this audience or oh, this is really hot right now,” he said in a recent phone interview. “To me that’s a compromise and that’s a cop out. And you shouldn’t be playing music.

You should stop making garbage and do something else with your life because to me, that’s just not fulfilling. And the day that I stop progressing and the day I stop learning how to make the music that I want to make, I’ll stop as well because I don’t want to play music for other people. I want to play music for myself. And if people like that music, then hot dog! I’m stoked.

Travis hasn’t come anywhere close to falling into creative stasis in his career — especially within his new band, A Lot Like Birds, which is performing Nov. 24 at The Palladium.

The vocalist, who first gained notoriety fronting the band Dance Gavin Dance from 2008 and 2010, has, in A Lot Like Birds, joined a band that has evolved so much between its first CD, “Plan B,” and its recently released second effort, “Conversation Piece,” that it almost is a different band.

In fact, A Lot Like Birds wasn’t really a full-fledged band when “Plan B” was released. Instead, the debut was the brainchild of guitarist Michael “Mikey” Franzino and bassist Michael Littlefield (known to his bandmates as “Butter.”) They recruited a host of other musicians from their hometown of Sacramento, Calif., to play on “Plan B.”

“The reason ‘Plan B’ came about is because bands are really, really hard to keep together, and I think they weren’t fed up, so to speak, but they were just like, you know what, we can do this,” Travis said. “We can create something of our own, and we’ll wait for the members that come to fill those places. But first and foremost, we just want to write really good music, the music that we have been trying to do and make this the new cool thing.”

This is indeed what happened, as guitarist Ben Wiacek and vocalist Cory Lockwood (who both played on “Plan B” were joined by drummer Joe Arrington and eventually Travis to turn A Lot Like Birds into a full-fledged band.

From the start, it was apparent that the music on the second album was going to be considerably different from “Plan B.”

Where the debut was largely an instrumental album, the next batch of songs was going to be much more centered around the vocals of Travis (who primarily does the sung vocal parts) and Lockwood (who primarily is the screamer) for the band – although those roles occasionally reverse on some songs.

The sonic textures of the first album, whose music was primarily written by Franzino, are also very different from what the full-fledged group – which wrote far more as a collaborative unit – created on “Conversation Piece.”

“The drums are all programmed drums (on “Plan B”), and they’re just crazy. They’re all over the place,” Travis said.

“And I feel like Mikey wanted to do that on purpose and kind of have this over-the-top, extremely intricate, almost unhuman sound to the drums and to everything else.”

By contrast, “Conversation Piece” was written with the idea of being able to reproduce the songs live — with Arrington, a rock-solid drummer, handling the vast majority of the rhythms, and guitars and bass being the other key instruments.

Still, there was a little technology involved in creating the songs on “Conversation Piece” — which blend the chaotic and harsh elements of hardcore (complete with screamed vocals) with more free-form instrumental parts of modern prog rock.

That has come into play as the band tours behind “Conversation Piece.”

“Mikey is really, really creative with putting in sound clips,” Travis said. “We’ve also got some really good backing tracks, which I usually don’t like to use. I’m more of a punk rock guy when it comes to backing tracks and what not, but I really, really like them (here) because there’s a lot of, like for instance, there’s a song called ‘Vanity’s Fair,’ and it’s got a trumpet intro and it’s also in the chorus. We were able to incorporate that into our set via backing tracks. I think it sounds really good. It sounds really tasteful, and it’s not too over the top where we’re being Milli Vanilli or whatever.

“It just has a nice full sound to it,” he said.

“There are a lot of songs on the (second) record that definitely benefit from having a little bit more in there. And we want these tours to be really, really professional, as professional as we possibly can. And I think it sounds really good, and I think in the venues we’re going to play, it’s going to sound good.”

CDL A DELIVERY DRIVERS Home Every Night! Needed for our Worcester Depot! Drive local - No more spending valuable nights away from your family! As a Direct Store Delivery Representative YOU have the opportunity to make a difference with our customers! Provide excellent customer service; interact in a positive manner with our customers; deliver our products to local stores. Be home every night! Work for a Company that has been around for over 80 years! Minimum of 3 months driving experience with CDL A/B; GED or HS diploma required; Must be able to drive a standard transmission. EEO/Veteran/Disability Growing Strong Since1933!